Corporate responsibility at Altia

Responsibility and its development are fundamental values for Altia. Our stakeholders increasingly expect companies to operate in a responsible and transparent manner. As a major player in the alcoholic beverage business, we want to meet these expectations.

Corporate responsibility at Altia is founded on four cornerstones:

Altia and customers

At Altia, we are serious about product quality and safety and want to ensure the traceability of our products.

We use clean groundwater as the key raw material in the production of alcoholic beverages. We assess responsibility aspects when choosing suppliers of raw materials and other materials, as well as providers of services.

We develop our product portfolio to respond to the demand for responsible products, including organic and fair-trade products.

Altia and society

We are in favour of the right and obligation to use alcohol responsibly. We highlight this aspect in our marketing and our cooperation with other operators in the field.

Ensuring human rights in the supply chain is a joint interest of Altia, our clients and consumers. We cooperate with our major clients, the Nordic alcohol retail monopolies, to promote good working conditions, and we also act accordingly.

Altia and employees

We promote good leadership at Altia and invest in the well-being of our employees.

Occupational health and safety are key priorities at all of our locations.

We communicate openly about remuneration.

Altia and the environment

We are committed to reducing our energy use, and we invest in energy-saving measures.

We continuously seek to reduce the amount of waste we generate and recycle as much of the waste as we can. We develop our packaging to make recycling easy for consumers and to reduce our impact on the environment.

We aim at reducing our water intake and monitor the quality of our wastewater.

In terms of logistics, we operate efficiently by combining Altia’s and our partners’ product processes and operating close to consumers.

Key environmental effects

Altia’s key environmental effects arise from the operations of the Koskenkorva distillery and those of the alcoholic beverage plants in Rajamäki and Tabasalu.

The environmental management systems at the Koskenkorva and Rajamäki plants and in the support functions, sales and marketing at the Helsinki headquarters have ISO 14001 certification. The Tabasalu plant complies with applicable Estonian environmental laws and regulations.

Environmental systems are developed through regular audits and common practices, such as harmonisation of the assessment of environmental considerations. Energy and environmental considerations are taken into account in planning and executing production processes and investments in production.

In spring 2015, Altia made a commitment to the Baltic Sea Action Group to promote sustainable farming.

Reducing emissions

More than 95% of the climate impact of production of spirits comes from the production of ethanol. At the Koskenkorva plant, all of the carbon dioxide generated by the process is captured.

The new biopower plant built to generate steam for the Koskenkorva plant is fully capable of burning agricultural biomasses. The new power plant is the first industrial-scale straw-fired facility in Finland and will reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of the Koskenkorva plant by 50%.

The primary fuel of the 10 MW biopower plant is barley husks, a by-product of the grain-based spirits and starch production process. Barley husks are equivalent to straw in terms of combustion properties and heating value. The facility uses barley throughout the year. The biopower plant enhances Altia’s material efficiency, as up to almost 100% of barley seeds are used in production.

Altia is aiming at up to 65% fuel self-sufficiency in steam production at the Koskenkorva plant. Following the commissioning of the new power plant, the use of peat as fuel has fallen to about one-third of the previous volumes.